The fantastic Drew Friedman says: "My latest book project will be one hundred black and white portraits of underground comix icons presented as they were during that most fertile era of underground comix, 1967-1977, from Z to A, ZAP to ARCADE (with some stops before and after). Short biographies and samples of their work will also be included."

To me, this is a natural followup to my two Heroes of the Comics books that both focused on the great creators of mainstream comics, from the mid- thirties to the mid-fifties, now jumping a decade to the dawn of the undergrounds.

Underground comix was a counterculture movement that produced iconoclastic and wonderfully forbidden, no-holds-barred comic books and other small press publications focusing mainly on sex, violence and drugs, and featured comix and graphix produced by some of the greatest artistic talents and satiric minds of the day, most prominently the "father of underground comix," R. Crumb.

All of the essential players from that ten year era of undergrounds will be included: Frank Stack, Gilbert Shelton, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Bill Griffith, Diane Noomin, Denis Kitchen, Justin Green, Kim Deitch, Jay Lynch, Jim Osborne, Trina Robbins, Vaughn Bode, Howard Cruise, all the ZAP artists, the Bijou Funnies artists, the Air Pirates, etc, as well as several obscure, forgotten and black creators. This project should be completed by early to mid 2021 and published either later that year, or in 2022, depending on unforseen circumstances in the publishing world.

I love everything Drew does, and I'm really looking forward to this one. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/31/a-sneak-preview-of-drew-friedm.html

It’s summer. And this year, Europe and  Disney World just aren’t really all that feasible as part of your travel plans.

Yet especially with the last few months we’ve all endured, the need to get away and experience something new is like a raging fire in many of us. So if you can’t be around too many people these days, how about going where people ain’t?

Camping in the great — and vast — outdoors might be just what you need to decompress a bit, so stock up on these 10 tents, hammock and camping essentials, all at savings up to 60 percent, to make your time away as fulfilling as you need it to be.

Nylon Mesh Hammock - $17.99; originally $29

Sleeping on the ground is never comfortable, so this premium nylon and mesh hammock is ideal for sleeping under the stars without grimacing your way through the whole night. Portable and lightweight at less than 8 ounces, it holds up to 220 pounds comfortably for a relaxing afternoon swing or a full night’s slumber.

Foldable Nylon Hammock - $34.99; originally $49

With durable nylon construction and anchored by twin metal carabiners, this beast can support up to 485 pounds of weight. It’s also extremely versatile, foldable into a carrying back that even includes a strap for improved portability when you’re hiking to your campsite.

Natural Cotton Rope Hammock - $79.99; originally $199

Hand-dyed and woven from 100 percent natural cotton with soft to the touch materials, the Yellow Leaf hammock comes from a thicker weaving yarn, so you can hang with no flipping or even those waffle print markings all over your body. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/from-tree-tents-to-headlamps.html

Where would we be without Alexa? Without Amazon’s virtual assistant, who would we ask to play back our favorite songs or tell us the weather or beatbox? No, seriously...ask Alexa to beatbox.

Of course, Alexa does have her limitations. The biggest one being that she’s tethered to an electrical outlet. For the vastness of her all-knowing powers, Alexa, and the Amazon Echo she’s working through, are dependent on staying plugged in, which means their range only extends as far as the power cord.

The SkyTote Battery Sleeve seeks to change all that, taking your Amazon Echo off the chain so Alexa can freely roam anywhere within your WiFi range.

The SkyTote works with all second-generation Amazon Echo units. All you have to do is slide the factory casing off your Echo, open the battery cover at the base, slip the SkyTote over the top -- and now, your Echo is cordless. The two sync right up, so rather than getting a new Echo for every room in your house, you can now just take one room-hopping with you.

The SkyTote sports a rechargeable 8,800mAh lithium-ion battery that lasts up to eight hours on a single charge. Unencumbered, the SkyTote even lets you take Alexa out of the house, so long as you can keep her connected to your vehicle WiFi or a smartphone hotspot.

A set of four LEDs on the base always keep you aware of its current power levels, and a power button lets you shut the speaker down to preserve your battery life when it isn't in use. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/the-skytote-battery-sleeve-for.html

For years the British Royal Family has been nothing but a soap opera to the tabloids.

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/the-royal-mafia-hit-squad-the.html

I bought a USB rechargeable lighter last year and will never go back to using matches or a butane lighter. I've used it to light many charcoal barbecues, candles, and stove burners. It works by making a small electric arc across two electrodes. It makes a barely perceptible hissing sound, but one of my cats can hear it from across the room and she runs away. It must sound like another cat hissing at her. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/this-usb-powered-lighter-is-a.html

A request from r/ObscureMedia: "Mysterious cassette tape of probably (1970)s rock band album. No results from Shazam or online lyric searches. Found in charity shop without correct case or labels." Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/mystery-cassette-from-thrift-s.html

YouTube comment: "I feel like it's Sesame's Street's goal to have all of their shorts pop up into people's minds when they get older and ask themselves "Did I actually see that, or was it a dream?'"

[via r/ObscureMedia] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/surreal-face-morph-animation-f.html

This video starts by helping you visualize 1 million. A thick book has about 1 million alphanumeric characters. It moves to 1 billion -- it would take 32 years to count to 1 billion. A trillion bacteria can fit in a single cube of sugar. About 1 quadrillion ants live on earth. The diameter of the Milky Way is about 1 quintillion kilometers. A glass of water contains about 10 septillion water molecules. A googol is 1 with 100 zeros following it. There are a googol possible hypothetical chess games. The video then shows a machine created by an artist that has a 100 of 10-to-1 reduction gears. The first gear needs to be rotated a googol number of times for the last gear to rotate once. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/this-video-helps-you-envision.html

The stock market hasn't crashed yet, but a Bloomberg headline reveals what's really happening in the United States: "Almost 30 Million in U.S. Didn’t Have Enough to Eat Last Week. The US GDP fell by 9.5% in the second quarter. The New York Times says "The percentage decrease in GDP is by far the biggest on record."

The chart below, which shows the rise and fall of the GDP since the late 1940s reveals the enormity of the decline:

Trump responded to the news by giving people something else to talk about:

With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/on-news-of-record-breaking-us.html

Kids under the age of 5 who show symptoms of COVID-19 have higher concentrations of the virus than any other age group, according to a study published today in the JAMA Pediatrics journal.

From Fortune:

"One of the things that’s come up in the whole school reopening discussion, is: since kids are less sick, is it because they have less of the virus?," said Taylor Heald-Sargent, the lead author and a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, and assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

"And our data does not support that,” she told Fortune. As a result, "we can't assume that kids aren't able to spread the virus."

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/children-are-major-carriers-of.html

“I am America.”

9. 9. 9.

Herman Cain died of COVID-19 today.

Killed by a hoax. Sad.

Herman Cain dies of Covid

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/watch-herman-cains-smoking.html

Gamer and philanthropist MrBeast gave his buds several challenges in GTA V, with the stipulation that they could not break any laws. No punching, stealing, or even jaywalking. Turns out it's quite difficult, but not impossible.

Challenge winners get $1000. Overall loser has to eat a cup of mayonnaise. With that kind of motivation, these crazy kids get creative fast.

MrBeast also plays a lot of fun Minecraft challenges, like surviving against 100 players trying to kill his squad.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/playing-gta-without-breaking-t.html

Republican presidential candidate and businessman Herman Cain has died. Hospitalized with Covid since June, Cain attended Trump's disastrous Tusla rally shortly before his symptoms appeared.

We knew when he was first hospitalized with COVID-19 that this was going to be a rough fight. He had trouble breathing and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. We all prayed that the initial meds they gave him would get his breathing back to normal, but it became clear pretty quickly that he was in for a battle.

We didn’t release detailed updates on his condition to the public or to the media because neither his family nor we thought there was any reason for that. There were hopeful indicators, including a mere five days ago when doctors told us they thought he would eventually recover, although it wouldn’t be quick. We were relieved to be told that, and passed on the news via Herman’s social media. And yet we also felt real concern about the fact that he never quite seemed to get to the point where the doctors could advance him to the recovery phase.

The announcement is weird because Cain's been "tweeting" as if nothing was wrong throughout his stay in hospital, a ghoulish and unsettling exercise in social media management that continued until two hours ago.

Review / Logitech MX Keys

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/herman-cain-dies-of-covid.html

Hands down one of the greatest of all time! Composer and pianist Ramsey Lewis will be streaming live on August 29th to support the Jazz Foundation of America.

I have already bought my ticket.

Stage It:

GRAMMY® Award-winning pianist and NEA Jazz Master Ramsey Lewis presents an exclusive concert experience Saturday August 29th at 1:00 PM Central Time - Ramsey Lewis Plays Songs From The In Crowd!

Ramsey Lewis has recorded over 81 albums and has received seven gold records and three Grammy Awards in his storied career. In the mid 60’s, Lewis was the nation’s most successful jazz pianist, topping the charts with "The 'In' Crowd". The single sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. Now Ramsey is revisiting this classic record with a very special Saturday Salon - Ramsey Lewis Plays Songs From The In Crowd! “The In Crowd” provided Ramsey Lewis with his biggest hit reaching the top position on the Billboard R&B Chart and No. 2 on their top 200 albums chart in 1965 and the single, “The ‘In’ Crowd” reaching No. 2 on the R&B Chart and No. 5 on the Hot 100 singles chart in the same year. The album also received a Grammy Award in 1966 for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance by an Individual or Group and the single was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 2009.

A portion of the proceeds from each performance benefits The Jazz Foundation of America. The JFA is one of the leading non-profit organizations focused on aiding jazz musicians in this international time of need.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/august-29th-legendary-jazz-pi.html

Charlie Elphicke was the Conservative Party's Member of Parliament for Dover. Now he's likely headed to jail, convicted of sexually assaulting two women. Though the cases occurred years apart, both victims reported uncannily similar assaults.

He forced his victim on to a sofa and groped her breast while trying to kiss her, before chasing her and chanting "I'm a naughty Tory".

Elphicke will be sentenced in September; the judge already told him he's likely to receive a custodial sentence.

Enjoy this lesson in instrumentality and choice, courtesy of Natalie Elphicke, Dover's new MP and Charlie's wife of 25 years:

Today’s verdict is one that brings profound sorrow. It ends my 25 year marriage to the only man I have ever loved.

I would ask for some personal space and time to come to terms with the shocking events of the last 3 years.

I will not be commenting further.

 Natalie Elphicke MP (@NatalieElphicke) July 30, 2020

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/jail-likely-for-politician-who.html

Above, legendary punk trio H"usker D"u meet Joan Rivers and perform on her Late Show in 1987.

I have a special love for H"usker D"u as they were my first club show, back in 1985 or so. (My first concert was Styx and, yes, that was amazing too.) Over the years, I've gotten to know H"usker D"u guitarist/vocalist Bob Mould who is a very warm, funny, and kind gentleman. Bob has a new album, Blue Hearts, coming out September 25 and I can't wait for him to melt my face with another live show sometime in the hopefully not-too-distant future. Below from the forthcoming record is "Forecast of Rain" along with a classic Boing Boing Video performance/interview with Bob produced by the talented team at Remedy Editorial.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/watch-husker-du-meet-joan-rive.html

Living through a pandemic may not feel predictable, but your quarantine routine probably does. However, even beyond lockdown life, the world can be "close to deterministic," according to the Fatum Project theory. "All things in the world are causally connected and everything that happens, including our thoughts, is usually determined by the sum of all environmental factors."

Randonautica is an app that borrows from the Fatum Project's research to break away from the probability-tunnels our everyday choices create. Using a quantum number generator to send users to a set of mysterious coordinates, Randonautica has become a "fully functional reality-tunnel creating machine that digs rabbit holes to wonderland." Perhaps it sounds enchanting, but for some, the trip to wonderland can be unnervingly ominous.

If you're not into quantum physics and philosophy, this may seem like a jumble of nonsense. Maybe you are into quantum physics and philosophy, but it still sounds like a jumble of nonsense. Either way, I'll offer a quick summary of what helped me make sense of some of the internet's "Randonauts" adventures and get to the fun (spooky) stuff.

No matter what choices we make, there are simply some places we can never be because our chain of decisions will never lead us there. The app can measure different magnetic fields around you called voids, attractors, or a pseudo (more on those later). Meshing the physical energy, or lack of it, around you with the power of the human mind can show you something you would never have found otherwise. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/the-adventure-app-randonautica.html

UK company Killing Kittens is an online, women-led hook-up platform that began as a network to organize "decadent and hedonistic parties... fully focused on the pursuit of female pleasure." Now, Killing Kittens has taken around $220,000 in investment from the UK government's "Future Fund" that, according to the British Business Bank, "issues convertible loans to innovative UK companies with good potential, that typically rely on equity investment and are currently affected by COVID-19." From CNN:

[Killing Kittens] now has 180,000 members in 12 countries and recorded a 330% increase in traffic to its website during coronavirus lockdowns[...]

Killing Kittens, which says it is valued at lb11.5 million ($14.9 million) based on previous funding rounds, recently raised lb170,000 ($221,780) on crowd-funding platform Seedrs. Those proceeds were matched by the Future Fund, which provides loans of between lb125,000 ($162,000) and lb5 million ($6.5 million) to companies, subject to at least match funding from private investors.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/uk-government-invests-in-sex-p.html

Kevin McCarthy accidentally calls Louie Gohmert "Congressman COVID" pic.twitter.com/UcQcvHtEU9

 The Recount (@therecount) July 29, 2020

In this footage, house minority leader Kevin McCarthy calls his GOP colleague Louie Gohmert, freshly diagnosed with the virus, "Congressman COVID." Harsh, but true. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/kevin-mccarthy-calls-infected.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/796746.html